News and analysis on politics, human rights and civil society in Latin America by Geoffrey Ramsey

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Zuluaga Reverses on Colombia Peace Talks

Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, the Uribista presidential
frontrunner in Colombia's first round vote, has altered his stance on
negotiating with FARC guerrillas, dealing a blow to President Juan Manuel
Santos’ attempts to frame their contest as a choice between “war vs. peace.”

The reversal was part of a pact with Conservative
Party candidate Marta Lucia Ramirez, who came in third place in Sunday’s
election, obtaining 15.5 percent of the vote. Ramirez agreed
to support Zuluaga’s bid in exchange for adopting some of her proposals,
including softening his approach to peace talks. In a joint
declaration released yesterday, the two agreed that negotiations with
rebels should continue under a Zuluaga administration, albeit under some new conditions.
These include:

a. Immediately ending the recruitment of
children.

b. Desisting from laying landmines and providing
the government with maps of existing minefields for clearance to start
immediately.

c. Stopping terrorist attacks against the
population.

d. Ending war crimes.

e. Stopping attacks on infrastructure.

f. The government will reach an agreement
on a time limit for negotiations with the FARC.

g. We will insist that the FARC comply with
their commitment to end kidnapping and extortion and on the necessity of the
group ceasing activities related to drug trafficking.

As Semana
reports, this is a far cry from Zuluaga’s recent remarks on the peace talks. On
Monday he said he would provisionally
suspend the talks immediately upon taking office, and end them unless
guerrillas adopted a permanent unilateral ceasefire, a condition the FARC have rejected
in the past. In previous statements the Uribe-backed candidate also
said he would not allow rebel leaders to participate in politics without
serving jail time.

La
Silla Vacia suggests that these new conditions are far more realistic. The
FARC have already announced an end to kidnapping, and issues like drug
trafficking, landmines and the recruitment of minors are currently being
negotiated.

The news site also points out that the
announcement puts President Juan Manuel Santos in a tight spot ahead of the June
15 runoff. Up to now, he has based much of his re-election campaign on his
image as the “peace candidate,” and Zuluaga’s mano dura approach to FARC negotiations
has played into this. But with his opponent embracing an updated, more nuanced
position on peace talks, Santos may have a harder time convincing voters that a
vote for him is a vote to end the country’s long-running armed conflict.

News Briefs

Despite some
opposition, the United States House of Representatives yesterday passed
a bill that instructs the Obama administration to compile a list of
Venezuelan officials linked to human rights abuses and freeze their assets in
the U.S. The vote follows the approval
of a separate sanctions measure by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last
week, though analysts
cited by Bloomberg suggest the Senate bill is unlikely to move to the full
floor unless opposition protests and a violent crackdown escalate dramatically.

As U.S. lawmakers passed the sanctions
bill, the Venezuelan government announced yet another discovery of an alleged
plot to kill President Nicolas Maduro, supposedly backed by the opposition. Over
at Venezuela
Conspiracy Theories Monitor, Hugo Perez Hernaiz has a good overview of the claims
made by heavyweights in the ruling United Socialist Party yesterday, who said
the plans also included the assassination of various other government
officials. As the New
York Times reports, the “evidence” of the plot includes emails from
opposition figures like Maria Corina Machado, who in one alleged message said
she had the backing of U.S. Ambassador
to Colombia Kevin Whitaker.

In Peru, the recent abrupt replacement of
drug czar Carmen Masias is being seen by some analysts as a sign that the administration
of President Ollanta Humala has shifted his approach to drug policy somewhat.
Masias, who has publicly complained that she was unceremoniously
told to resign on Tuesday, has been replaced by Alberto Otarola Peñaranda,
a former defense minister with
close ties to Humala. IDL-Reporteros claims that the replacement is the
result of the administration backing
away from plans to adopt an aggressive, confrontational eradication strategy
in the coca-growing VRAE region -- which Masias supported -- in favor of one
based on alternative development and subsidized replacement crops. According to
El
Comercio, her removal was the result of an agreement reached between the
government and coca growing associations in the VRAE. The Centro de
Investigacion Drogas y Derechos Humanos, a Lima-based drug policy reform
advocacy group and research center, has
praised Masias’ ouster as an opportunity for the government to adopt a more
“efficient, sustainable, respectful and clear” approach to drugs in Peru.

The AP has a photo
essay on the impact that the Peruvian government’s recent crackdown on
illegal mining in April has had on a once-booming mining town in the Amazon
region.

A new Gallup poll shows 66
percent of Hondurans support newly-inaugurated President Juan Orlando
Hernandez, significantly higher than the 34 percent of votes that won him
victory in November’s elections. InSight
Crime notes that the poll also shows wide public satisfaction with his hardline
crime policies, which are largely a continuation of the militarized approach to
security of his predecessor.

A French court has ruled in favor of
extraditing former Argentine police official Mario Alfredo Sandoval, who is
wanted in his country for a
list of over 600 human rights violations stemming from his time working at
a special prison for dissidents during the dictatorship era.

Indigenous Diaguitas activists in Chile
have reached
a preliminary agreement with Canadian mining company Barrick over a
controversial gold mine along the Argentina-Chile border, which critics say
threatens the local water supply. But while the AP reports that locals and
environmentalists have hailed the agreement as a victory, El
Ciudadano notes that a coalition of activist groups in the area has said
those negotiating with Barrick do not fully represent the affected community.

A Mexican federal court has ordered
the government to pay compensation to Jacinta Francisco Marcial, an Otomi
indigenous woman whose arrest and imprisonment for kidnapping on dubious grounds
was condemned
by local and international human rights groups. As Animal
Politico reports, the Miguel Agustín Pro Juarez Human Rights Center has
called the ruling a “historic precedent,” as it establishes grounds for victims
of unjust imprisonment to seek reparations from the state.

Former Ecuadorean President Jamil Mahuad has
responded to his addition to Interpol’s wanted list this week by saying that
the charges against him, which include embezzling public money in a 1999
banking crisis, are "predominantly
political." Mahuad is living in the U.S. and has lectured at the Harvard,
which is reportedly “evaluating”
its relationship with the ex-president.

The Wall
Street Journal reports on opposition to Argentine President Cristina
Fernandez among the agricultural industry in the country, noting complaints
among farmers that the government is using record soy exports to stem a drop in
foreign reserves.

About The Author

Geoff Ramsey works as a communications officer for the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Before joining WOLA, Ramsey worked as a researcher for the Open Society Foundation’s Latin America Program. His most recent work involved monitoring civil society advocacy for and implementation of 2013 drug policy reforms in Uruguay, where he lived for nearly two years. Prior to that he spent two years living in Colombia and Brazil, where he researched and reported on regional insecurity issues for InSight Crime. Any views or opinions expressed in these posts are the sole responsibility of the author. Email: gramsey (at) thepanamericanpost (dot) com